A stolen election.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Absolutely no one should be surprised that Robert Mugabe was declared the winner of Zimbabwe's recent presidential election.

Mugabe, who has ruled since the southern African nation won independence from Britain in 1980, waged a campaign of violence, arrests and disenfranchisement that kept many opposition supporters from exercising their right to vote. Once again, the 78-year-old autocrat has made it clear that he is unwilling to yield power to an opponent in an open and free election - even if it means the continued destruction of his country.

Faced with his toughest challenger to date, former union leader Morgan Tsvangirai, Mugabe brazenly stole the election. Now the United States and the rest of the world must make sure he suffers the full weight of international censure until free elections are held.

The few international observers that Mugabe failed to arrest or expel condemned the March 9-11 election as flawed and far short of international standards for fairness. More than 1,400 people - mostly independent election observers and monitors from the opposition party - were arrested as the vote was taking place. A network of church and civic groups says tens of thousands of people were prevented from voting by use of rigged voter rolls and the threat of violence from Mugabe's roving gangs of thugs.

In the weeks preceding the vote, Mugabe sent militia members to terrorize the opposition, pressured his supporters in Parliament to approve a law silencing the news media, banned foreign reporters, and charged his opponent with high treason.

Zimbabwe was once one of southern Africa's most democratic and prosperous countries. Under Mugabe, the economy has gone into free fall. Nearly 60 percent of the workforce is jobless, and the annual rate of inflation is 116 percent. More than 500,000 people - mostly in the countryside - are at risk of starvation.

Mugabe's deployment of nearly 11,000 soldiers to help neighboring Congo fight an unpopular civil war costs the nation as much as $3 million per week. His land reform program has driven thousands of farmers and their workers from viable farms, leaving crops rotting as squatters move in.

Nearly a third of Zimbabwe's adults are infected with HIV, and state-run hospitals lack even basic medications. An estimated 60,000 physicians and other professionals have fled Zimbabwe in the last two years alone.

President Bush said Wednesday that the United States will not recognize the result of Zimbabwe's election. Other nations should do the same, and international sanctions should follow. Even more importantly, the leaders of Africa's leading democracies, including Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, must end their silence on Mugabe's corrupt regime and make him a pariah on the continent.

The oppressed people of Zimbabwe deserve an opportunity to freely express their will at the polls. Mugabe has refused to allow that. Now he must go.